The live Q&A discussion following Session 10 chaired by Lucia Toniolo was full and engaging. The recording can be found on the IIC Congress website. The questions for the panelists exceeded the time allotted for the discussion, however the authors have generously answered the remaining questions below. First are questions for the general group. Following are specific questions regarding each paper, in the order of presentation.

Q: Should church objects within museum collections be included in conversations on repatriation?

Behind the Scenes at Gladstone’s Land: a 17th Century renovation project

Anna Brereton and Kate Stephenson were hosts for this year’s IIC Congress tour. Together they created a 17-minute video that took us through Gladstone’s Land, the subject of this blog post. Gladstone’s Land is one of the oldest buildings on Edinburgh's Royal Mile and a towering testament to tenement life in Edinburgh's Old Town. The tour “really wets one’s appetite” for Scotland – as noted by audience member Helen Hughes – owed in large to the hearty enthusiasm of its guides.

"We must embrace change.” Professor Jane Henderson, Secretary General of the IIC, reiterated her opening words from the IIC Preprints preface during the final remarks. It is a sentiment that has already been achieved by participants of this year's Edinburgh Congress. The constantly shifting world of 2020 has made many feel uncertain, but our ability to adapt and thrive despite the circumstances was showcased during the lively and engaging congress held online this year.

Presenter Lizzie Woolley discussed the "Vibration Monitoring of Daniel Maclise’s Wall Painting at Trafalgar."

When it comes to vibration research in preventive conservation, the UK’s Houses of Parliament or Palace of Westminster pose a new challenge not only for  architectural restoration, but most importantly the prevention of vibration in a working building to preserve the Trafalgar mural located behind the working space, involving the removal and replacement of the masonry.

Through our experiences, we are all in some way aware that light plays an influential role in the appreciation of historic interiors and museum collections. Lighting conditions can not only affect visitor comfort but can also affect the vulnerability of the showcased objects. The second theme of Session 9, Preventive Conservation, highlights sustainable and reversible/non-intrusive systems to manage the performance and optimum use of daylight in historic buildings.

Session 9, the last session of the fourth day of the IIC Congress covered Preventive Conservation, a crucial subject indeed, after different perspectives on remedial conservation were dealt with in the previous days. The session allowed for a nice overview of three topics: controlling the climate in historic interior spaces, managing light radiation, and vibration monitoring and mitigation. It was interesting to see the range of solutions that were developed across various institutions in the UK.

Historic house museums and historic sites are an integral part of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Their caretakers preserve these significant buildings, landscapes and objects for the future, educate the masses, commemorate historical events and significant historical figures, provide places of beauty and sustain communities by providing mutual spaces and reinforcing a shared identity. These historic buildings and landscapes are often the primary artifacts preserved, maintained, and interpreted for the public.

The Dialogue entitled “Climate Change & Covid: What is the Heritage Impact?” had a huge impact on our audience on Wednesday, November 4th. The chairman, Ewan Hyslop, of Historic Environment Scotland, posed a number of thought provoking questions to the panelists, drawing forward conversations about the role of heritage institutions at the intersection of these two global emergencies.

I hope to be able to convey in this blog the buoyant, humbling and stimulating atmosphere during the IIC Dialogue on Climate Change & Covid. Chaired by Dr Ewan Hyslop, head of technical research and science at Historic Environment Scotland, the conversation plunged straight into what was on many people’s minds.

Session 7 of the IIC Congress “Architectural and Archaeological Sites” took us around the globe, examining conservation techniques and approaches to combat various issues. The importance of local communities and inter-disciplinary collaboration was made apparent using case studies of Nepalese temples, the Canadian Parliament, The World Trade Centre, Neo-Assyrian sculptures in Mosul and the great monolith Uluru.